


The Center of Every Poem

by lady_romanov



Category: The Witcher (TV), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Angst and Feels, Emotional Constipation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It, Forgiveness, Idiots in Love, M/M, Pining, Post-Episode: S01E06 Rare Species, Pre-Relationship, Reconciliation, Timeline What Timeline
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:22:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22277809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_romanov/pseuds/lady_romanov
Summary: Jaskier can't sleep, afterwards. His dreams are filled with wolf eyes, he wakes tangled up in sheets; Geralt is still buried in his bones five months later, and the worst part is that Jaskier can't even hate him for it.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 24
Kudos: 431





	The Center of Every Poem

**Author's Note:**

> Please be kind, I haven't written fanfic in approximately 900 years. I never thought I'd write again or post on this website, but these two have grabbed my heart and I needed somewhere to put my emotions into words, and this fic was born. No beta, we die like grammatically incorrect men. Also, full disclaimer that I've neither read the books nor played the game, everything I know about this world comes from the show. Title from Salma Deera's 'Letters from Medea': "The centre of every poem is this: I have loved you. I have had to deal with that."

Jaskier can’t sleep.

_“Damn it Jaskier! Why is it whenever I find myself in a pile of shit these days, it’s you, shoveling it?”_

It’s not his fault. He knows that, logically. Geralt had lashed out in pain and anger after Yennefer left.

_“The Child Surprise, the djinn, all of it! If life could give me one blessing, it would be to take you off my hands.”_

Even knowing that, though, doesn’t even begin to curb the pain lodged in his chest like a dagger between his ribs. It’s been four months since he and Geralt parted ways and nothing - not coin, nor music, nor a woman’s touch - has come close to lifting the weight off of his chest. And here, in this shitty inn room with its hard, cold bed and damp, cold air is hardly helping; he hadn’t had enough coin to purchase a better room, only making a meager winning for singing in the inn the last three days. He could have made more if he’d sung Toss a Coin to Your Witcher, but he hasn’t been able to so much as hum the damn song since he left Geralt in the mountains; even thinking about it makes him feel ill, no matter the allure of more money. He’d thought, briefly, about writing a song about his heartbreak, but no matter how many hours he spent staring at the parchment trying to form words, he couldn’t manage to put his pain into lyrics; it felt too personal, like cutting out his heart and offering it up for coin. That might be less painful, though, than letting his heartbreak fester.

He needs to leave this town since he clearly isn’t going to make it big here, but the cold of winter is starting to set in and he doesn’t think he has enough to buy provisions and a horse, and there’s no way he can make it to the next town if it starts to snow; he might have learned a few things about surviving the wilderness while traveling with Geralt, but he’s not stupid enough to risk freezing to death.

  
He’ll be better off if he can manage to earn more than a handful of coins in the next few weeks, but he’ll only manage that if he cuts back on buying food. He grimaces at the thought – he’s already lost weight since leaving Geralt, his appetite souring in all his lonely glory, and cutting back even further while winter starts to set in won’t be fun. But if he can scrounge up the needed coin and buy a horse and maybe a good winter cloak, he’ll be fine to travel to a more populous town where he will, hopefully, be able to earn a better living.

  
(It goes without saying that people aren’t as friendly in the winter, aren’t as generous with their coin when they need to save all they have to survive the harsh season, but he doesn’t let himself think of that. He’s faced hard seasons before ( _before Geralt_ , his mind supplies bitterly) and he’ll face them again. He knew what he was getting when he chose to be a bard. He’ll survive. He’s getting better and better at surviving the things destiny decides to fuck him over with.)

He sighs and curls up tighter into his thin blanket, forcing himself to relax his tired body until he finally drifts off to sleep, where his dreams are filled with white hair and wolf eyes.

~

He wakes to a great racket in the morning, tangled in his blanket and mouth sour with sleep. Through the thin walls of the inn he can hear shouting from the tavern downstairs, which is hardly unusual in a bar, but it cannot be long past sunrise; Jaskier’s body still aches with tiredness, but as the shouting gets louder, he knows he will get no more sleep. He reluctantly rolls out of bed and dresses slowly, wincing as the shrill voice of the innkeeper’s wife joins the fray.

Opening the door to his room only makes the shouting grow louder, and he holds his lute to his chest as he walks, as if that will protect him if the town folk turn violent. He’s reached the top of the stairs leading to the lower landing when he hears a voice that freezes him in place; five months, and he still would know the timber of that voice anywhere. His heart lodges in his throat.

Geralt.

Why, why is the Witcher here? There’s been no report of monsters in the area that he’s heard; winters are bad for Witchers, too, when the monsters prefer going into hiding to wait out the cold that sweeps the Continent. Surely it cannot be a coincidence that’s brought him here, though.

Like the coincidences that have always brought us together? he thinks, blowing out a breath, still hovering at the top of the stairs. It’s true that even when they parted ways in the past, they always managed to find each other again; he’s always slyly blamed destiny for their continuing encounters, mostly because it never fails to make Geralt roll his eyes and give one of his half-smirks, but he often wonders why he keeps encountering the Witcher even when not actively seeking him out as he had that day with the djinn.

Below him, the shouting reaches a greater decimal, and he clenches his hands around his lute like a lifeline as he forces himself to descend the stairs; better end this before the damnable Witcher gets himself stoned by angry town folk. As he nears the tavern, he starts making out individual voices among the shouting.

“ - need no Witcher here, it will only bring us bad luck –"

“We’ve no coin for you, Butcher –"

“ – trespassing on my land –"

He knows what he’ll see, but even knowing doesn’t prepare him for the punch in the gut of seeing Geralt as he reaches the bottom of the stairs. He stands out like a sore thumb amongst the town folk crowded around him, his jaw clenched in annoyance, and Jaskier doesn’t need experience to tell him that Geralt is running thin on patience. Even still, angry and dirty and impatient as he is, the sight of him still feels like the first breath of air and salt in his wounds at the same time. Geralt has always inspired strong emotions in him, more so than anyone else, but instead of joy and excitement, all Jaskier feels now is a hollow sorrow.

He knows the moment Geralt sees him, because his whole face changes, just a little; his jaw unclenching and his eyes widening, and even from across the room Jaskier can feel the weight of those amber eyes burrow inside of him. He swallows heavily. Geralt pushes through the small crowd gathered around him and walks up to him, and Jaskier can feel his heart beating impossibly fast; he wonders, briefly, if Geralt can hear it.

“Jaskier,” Geralt rumbles quietly, and Jaskier holds back a shudder. Five months of hearing that voice in his dreams and still he feels himself weaken at his name on those lips.  


He forces his mouth to work. “Geralt,” he says with false brightness, “what brings you to my humble abode? Not another dragon, I hope.”

The muscle in Geralt’s cheek twitches. “I was hoping we could talk. Outside.”

Jaskier exhales, glancing behind Geralt to the growing gaggle of town folk who look ready to bodily throw them out. It appears his welcome in this town has worn out after all. He looks back at Geralt, finds his eyes fixed unerringly on his face. The ache in his chest grows sharper, the knife in his ribs twisting. “Alright,” he says eventually. “I’ve got to pack my things; I’ll meet you at the stables.”

-

He packs in a daze, not listening as the innkeeper, Mikhail, follows him to chew him out about the company he keeps. He doesn’t even have the heart to protest when the man demands extra money for “attracting trouble,” and Jaskier just throws his coin at the man’s feet as he stumbles out of his room and through the inn.

The air outside is bitingly cold, but the stable next to the inn is a bit warmer, and Jaskier’s spirits do rise a bit when he spots Roach beside Geralt’s hulking form. At least the horse doesn’t hate him, he thinks. Geralt lifts his head from where he’s murmuring into the mare’s ear, and Jaskier’s stomach clenches at the sharp look on the Witcher’s face. Surely Geralt hasn’t come all this way to yell at him some more?

They stand there in awkward silence for a few painfully long moments before Geralt pointedly clears his throat. "You'll freeze to death without a cloak in this weather," he says.

Jaskier stares at him, disbelieving. "Did you really come and find me in the middle of absolutely nowhere to insult my fashion sense?"

Geralt glares, jaw clenching. Jaskier hates that he's missed his stupid face so much that even his anger is somehow endearing. "No," the Witcher grits out. "I came - I came to apologize."

"You what?"

Geralt glares harder. "I came here. To apologize. To you."

Jaskier shakes his head. "Right. Apologize. For what, exactly? For taking your anger out on me? For blaming me for your decisions and your shitty luck? For leaving me to find my way down from that stupid mountain alone?" His mouth moves faster than his brain can process what he's saying, months of bitterness and hurt flooding out in a torrent. "How about for treating me like shit after I have being nothing but a friend to you for years?"

Geralt's mouth tightens into a frown, his glare turning into a weirdly contrite expression; it makes him look constipated, truth be told, and the thought might have made Jaskier laugh if this were any other moment in his life. "Yes," Geralt says, quieter than Jaskier's ever heard him. "For all of that, and more. I was angry and I blamed you for it, but I was wrong. You've been the only friend that I have ever had, and you did not deserve the things that I said to you that day. You deserve more than I can say."

Jaskier just stares at him, thrown. For all that he's dreamed of the Witcher nearly every night the past five months, he never imagined this. Mostly his dreams conjured up him finding Geralt and falling to his knees at the Witcher's feet, and the Witcher walking away from him, heedless of Jaskier's begging. He's never, he thinks distantly, heard so much honesty in Geralt's voice before. "I don't know what you want me to say," he says eventually.

Geralt's eyebrows draw together. "You do not have to say anything. I only came... I only came because you deserved an apology. You owe me nothing."

Jaskier wants to say, I owe you a great deal, but instead he says, "Are you leaving, then?"

"I'm not welcome here."

He snorts. "No kidding. Where are you going now?"

Geralt's face is dreadfully serious when he says, "Cintra."

"The Child Surprise?" Jaskier asks, startled.

Geralt grimaces again. "There's trouble with Nilfgaard brewing, according to the rumors I have been hearing." He pauses for a moment, looking more troubled than Jaskier remembers ever seeing him. "I've ignored destiny for long enough."

"And you stopped here just to apologize?" Jaskier says, when he really wants to say, Did you come here to ask me along?

Geralt must here it anyway, because he gets a very intense look on his face. "Yes," the Witcher says slowly, "unless there was something else you wanted."

Jaskier closes his eyes. This, this is the part where he should walk away. He's no fool for all that he's used to playing one, and he knows in his heart that what he wants from Geralt is something that he can never have, can hardly even put into words inside the safety of his own mind. He should walk away now and lick his wounds, and let himself grow used to their separation once more. He should stop while he's ahead, because this will only end one way, and that's painfully. He really, really should go, go and forget he ever knew Geralt of Rivia, forget all of this heartache and pain.

He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes. "I think," he says, "that I'd quite like to see Cintra again."

And Geralt smiles.

**Author's Note:**

> I love 1 (one) emotionally constipated Witcher and his twink boyfriend. Full disclosure that Geralt 100% did not expect Jaskier to want to leave with him. If this is terrible, I apologize. My writing skills are rusty as hell, and dialogue is my weak spot. Feel free to ignore me completely while I hunker off to cry about these two while waiting for s2.


End file.
